The Lies We Hear...

I'm sharing a devotion today. It can be applied to so many things besides our ability to spell the word 't-h-e'...Hope it speaks to you.

My hands were clammy. Beads of sweat formed on my brow. A familiar knot in the pit of my stomach threatened to push me toward the restroom, and my dry tongue began to cleave to the roof of my mouth. It was 10:25 a.m. In just five more minutes the dreaded event would begin.

When I was in the first grade, the one academic exercise I feared more than any other was the spelling train. It was sheer torture—at least for me.

“Okay, students,” Mrs. Jones would say. “Everyone pick up your chairs and move them over to the chalk board. It’s time for the spelling train.”

Twenty first graders slipped their munchkin-sized chairs from their desks to form a semi-circle around our chief engineer. I always put mine at the end.

“Now remember the rules,” she explained. “I am going to hold up a flash card. If you read the word correctly, you get to go to the front of the train. If you miss it, you have to go to the caboose.”

She held up the cards one by one, and the class chugged along at a quick pace. Dog. Sally. Bob. Spot. Red. Blue. Mother. Stop. Run. Then it was my turn.

“Susie, what is this word?”

Pause. Giggles.

Well, more often than not I had no idea. And when that happened, I would either guess wrong or sit in silence. I spent most of my time in the first grade spelling train in the caboose.

As the year progressed, I did move up into the passenger cars a few times, but usually I didn’t stay there long enough to keep the seat warm. There was one particular word that kept me from ever visiting the engine: T-h-e. So Mrs. Jones decided she was going to help me. For two weeks she made me wear a name tag that read “THE” plastered on my chest like the scarlet letter. I can still remember kids coming up to me on the playground, pointing at THE on my chest, and saying, “Hey, what’s that? Why are you wearing that? Is your name The? Are you stupid?”

Eventually I did learn how to spell the word t-h-e, but that’s not all I learned. I learned that I was stupid, not as smart as everybody else, and just not good enough. But you know what? That wasn’t true. Those were lies from the enemy. And it took many years for God to hold me by the hand and help me see myself as He sees me: a uniquely created, dearly loved, completely forgiven, and totally accepted child of God who is capable of doing everything He has called me to do by the power of the Holy Spirit.

That was more than forty years ago, and now I have found joy in stringing written words together. I’ve noticed that life has many unusual twists and turns when God is at the helm. He takes our greatest weaknesses and turns them into our grandest strengths. That’s what happens when we turn our lives over to Him—we get out of the caboose and get to ride up with the chief engineer to places we never imaged possible. When we are weak, then He is strong.

Where are you in the train of life right now? If you’re hiding in the back, listen closely and you just might hear God calling you up front where you belong.

Isn't it amazing to think of all God has done in our lives? He has taken our greatest weaknesses and turned them into some of our greatest strengths. When we are weak, through the power of the Holy Spirit we are strong. I am so thankful that God chooses to work in me and through me.

God's power is most obvious not in the military might of a king, but in the humility and weakness of average people. It is in the lives of the broken and downtrodden that His grace is most clearly visible.

Let Him help you to never believe the lies of Satan again.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10